Thursday, December 01, 2005

Slight posting hitch

Have tried several times to share my (of course, brilliant and completely original) photos of Angkor, I'm giving up.

Yesterday, I spent several hours traipsing around a village, doing a house-to-house survey. This was rather like my first week here, and prompted some reflections:

I can wear a sarong! I even got complemented on the fact that I wear it properly (by a woman in the street, who had no idea that I could understand her). Admittedly, I use a safety pin - a fact I kept to myself.

I can speak - a little. I certainly can't say "safety pin".

The houses still seem precarious.

It's still bloody hot.

The level of community still impresses me, but I also know it's not as idyllic as it looks.

But the biggest change was that I feel at home. I can walk up the hills without nearly collapsing. I can happily thread amongst the herd of buffalo. And most of all - I don't keep falling over. Yes, I've managed to recover my instincts to negotiate this most challenging of environments: a village road. And, given my usual level of clumsiness-induced injuries, I'm proud of this fact.